


A Certain Slant of Light

by lionlass7



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 12:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19272862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionlass7/pseuds/lionlass7
Summary: A collection of 100 drabbles, featuring Eugenides, Attolia, Eddis, Sophos, the Minister of War and his wife, Costis, and the-girl-who-puts-sand-in-Gen's-food.





	1. Part 1: 1-50

_There's a certain Slant of light,_  
_Winter Afternoons —_  
_That oppresses, like the Heft_  
_Of Cathedral Tunes —_

_-Emily Dickinson_

* * *

_1._   _Look_

She has cold, dark eyes, and whenever she looks his way, it is all he can do to keep from flinching out of his skin as they rake across his face.

 _2._   _Shame_

The long sleeves might be designed to hide the hook to keep others from realizing its usefulness…or, Sophos reflects, he might just be hiding it.

_3\. Peace_

Sometimes, as she watches her favorite cousin fiddle with his meat, carefully cut into bite sized pieces, she thinks that for his sake, she would willingly give up a lifetime of peace.

_4\. Blood_

"No," says the Queen when Phresine holds up the green dress that once was her favorite. "And not the red one either."

_5\. Heroic_

"'Hero' is generally a nice way of calling someone an idiot," he says dryly—but then, no one has ever claimed he was anything but.

_6\. Idiot_

It must be that the gods are laughing at him, because no one—no one—could possibly be this stupid twice in a row.

_7\. Lion_

"You should have heard Sophos roaring at me," he says, chuckling a little.

"Sounis," she reminds him, and his laughter dies.

_8\. Dark_

She sometimes awakens and finds herself in a prison cell, walls stained with blood an echoing with the haunting pleas of a boy who stole dreamless sleep from her forever.

_9\. Furthest_

"The art of jumping is not about strength or height," the Thief says to his grandson wryly, "but about distance."

_10\. Bunny_

She had always been fond of gentle creatures—only she giggles when she thinks of poor Sophos trying to wiggle his poor broken nose.

_11\. Flowers_

It is only when Gen finds himself destroying fields of flowers picnic by picnic (death by plucking) that he finds the courage to move beyond a mere, "She hates me, she hates me not."

_12\. Sunlight_

It breaks through the eastward facing window while she is yet asleep, curled beside him in the bed, and climbs through her hair like a dancing crown of sunbeams, and he can't help but think that she looks younger bathed in sunlight than she does in the light of the moon.

_13\. Clear_

"Am I perfectly clear?" Teleus snarls, annoyed at being sent to warn the kitchens against putting things in the king's food. She feels in her pocket for the fresh sack of sand before the echoes of his footsteps have completely died away.

_14\. Ink_

The Queen's chambers are re-painted three times after the Royal Wedding before her attendants replace the inkpots on the desk with paperweights in the evening.

_15\. Faraway_

It hurts when they sit on the roof at night and he looks toward Eddis and gets that look in his eyes like he's gone somewhere she cannot follow, so one night she takes his hand and whispers, "Take me with you."

_16\. Lost_

"What's wrong?" asks Sophos.

"Nothing," replies the Mede, a little flustered. "I simply seem to have misplaced my fibula pin."

_17\. Horse_

Costis is at a loss when the King of Attolia assumes a pout and says petulantly to his queen, "If we're visiting Sounis, you will find me a cart."

_18\. Hoarse_

He sounds younger when he is hoarse, after he has screamed and screamed until all that is left is a dry rasping, a rawness in his throat that swallows him up and leaves him gasping for breath when he awakes.

_19\. Game_

"Politics is not a game," she snarls.

A grin flirts at her from his curling lips. "Don't be so sure."

_20\. Child_

"We are not naming him Eugenides," said Irene.

Her husband looks forlorn, then grins. "Shall I grovel? I'm very good at groveling."

_21\. Nasty_

"Now, now," says Nahuseresh, eyeing the gleaming hook and the blazing eyes of the king (who was the fool who said he never let his temper show?). "There's no need for any unpleasantness."

_22\. Wings_

Sometimes, just after his feet leave the ground and he sees the space stretching out between him and the hard cobblestones below, he imagines that he can fly.

_23\. Fall_

She thinks about her father, in the moment her hand slips for the first and final time, and wonders if he was as unafraid as she to meet the ground.

_24\. Hand_

He does not know, when he is weeping in the darkest Attolian dungeon or lying in his own bed in Eddis, that he will one day manage to do more with one hand than any other Thief managed with two.

_25\. Voice_

"My poor queen," he says softly, brushing her ivory cheek with his fingers. "You even have a mask for your voice."

_26\. Dawn_

Her face looks the softest in the first light of morning, when they lean against each other on the roof and watch the sun wake the world for a new day.

_27\. Simile_

"Arguing with you is like trying to put sunlight in a bottle," he says during a fit of anger that leaves him rather wordless.

_28\. Beautiful_

She literally stole his breath away.

_29\. Apology_

"You must understand," Nahuseresh continues, "I did not mean for the queen to be burned with her palace."

_30\. Luck_

"Gen," Eddis remarks, watching him whine as Galen changes the bandage on his ankle. "You are lucky you are my favorite cousin. Otherwise you would probably be dead by now."

_31\. Pony_

"We could get you a pony," Irene suggests lightly.

He shakes his head. "Cart. The point is non-negotiable."

_32\. Mercy_

She learns to appreciate the irony of mercy only after she has cut off his hand and torn his world in two—only when she is faced with the undeniable certainty that her lack of mercy has left her to nightmares of the merciless, never-ending pleas and the incantation that has been branded into her mind forever.

_33\. Fingers_

"It would take more fingers than I have to count the times you've tried to kill me," he says, and she wishes he wasn't quite so cunning or painfully blunt (because it isn't as funny as he tries to pretend).

_34\. Sword_

The Mede's dark face goes a little white as he feels the slender curve of the hook brush against his neck, and his blood turns to ice when Attolis whispers, "So much more terrifying than a sword, isn't it?"

_35\. Atheist_

"I DON'T BELIEVE IN YOU!" Attolis screams spitefully, and Eugenides answers, "We know. But that doesn't mean we're just going to leave you alone."

_36\. Crimson_

He is trying to wash it out from underneath his fingernails (and failing, because he only has one hand), when she enters and stares at him, taking in the drenched tunic and mask of red that streaks his face.

_37\. War_

The Minister of War is proud of his niece when she proves with two words that brevity may be the soul of wit but is also a good indication of absolute certainty.

_38\. Elaborate_

"I am not wearing that," Sophos says flatly, and Helen smiles.

_39\. Eloquent_

"Flattery, you'll find, may stop men and kingdoms in their tracks," he begins, startling Nahuseresh after moving liquidly through the shadows, "but unfortunately for you, steel has no ears."

_40\. Afraid_

It is when she finds the earrings beside her crown that Attolia feels the horrible feeling steal over her, chilling her as naught has chilled her since the night she poisoned her husband—and she knows that the only way to stop herself from being afraid is to make him fear her instead.

_41\. Clever_

"How clever of you, Sophos," Attolis says quietly, and Sounis wonders if he, too, understands how clever must sometimes mean cruel.

_42\. Faded_

She doesn't have to wait for the bloodstains to fade from her green dress before she decides she will never wear it again.

_43\. Stolen_

"You stole a lot from me," she tells him quietly, running a hand through his hair very, very gently. "Peace of mind. Sleep."

"And your heart," her Thief adds smugly, and she smiles and replies, "Yes. And my heart."

_44\. Sweet_

He is being perfectly honest when he looks past her crooked nose and says, "You are the most beautiful woman in the world."

_45\. Faith_

"Anything," Gen breathes, surrounded by the glinting light from earrings and cups that lie scattered across the altar. "I'll give anything. Only don't let her die."

_46\. Devoted_

"You will have to knock me unconscious and tie me up to make me leave," slurs the king of Attolia, crossing his arms and glaring with eyes bleary from lack of sleep, "And then you will have to imprison me somewhere without a lock that I can pick."

Irene stirs in her fevered sleep and Gen forgets about the guards and clutches her hand gently.

_47\. Hate_

This Thief is different from the one he condemned that night in the palace, Nahuseresh realizes with growing horror, before the gleaming hook slices forward through the air. This Thief has learned how to hate.

_48\. Love_

"I dreamed you hated me," she stammers, lifting her face from where it had been buried in the shoulder of his now damp tunic. "I dreamed you gouged out  _my_  eyes and ripped the earrings from my ears."

His breath is soft against her skin. "I love your eyes. I love your ears."

_49\. Old_

"But my hair will turn gray first," she protests, and he murmurs, "I don't care."

_50\. Forever_

"If you fall, my Thief, I will kill you myself," Attolia hisses, gritting her teeth in horror as her fingers begin to slip.

"Don't worry, my Queen," Eugenides replies (he is never Attolis when he looks up at her like this, grinning through the terror of a thief's death and waiting for the guards to respond to his queen's cries). "When I decide it is time to meet my god, I will be sure to take you with me."


	2. Part 2: 51-100

_51\. Embrace_

There has never been anything quite equal to the moment (which is not, thankfully, a single experience but indeed happens every time they are alone) when he knocks aside her wall and wraps her in his arms until she feels completely and utterly safe (which is impossible, but he rolls his eyes when she says anything of the kind).

_52\. Cold_

The freezing air plays a tingling pattern on her skin as she twirls around the icy rooftop, but she has never been one to mind the cold.

_53\. Selfish_

"Move over!" he hisses, but she gives him only an inch, all the while keeping a firm grip on the embroidered eiderdown.

_54\. Spell_

"Bet you can't even spell your name," Ambiades says with a snicker.

"Bet you can't spell 'olive tree'," Gen replies, and Sophos feels horrible for almost grinning to see the elder blush.

_55\. Worry_

Eddis's Minister of War does not have many expressions, but as his youngest son hardly pays mind even to his words, it is doubtful that he would notice anything subtler (and even if he did, wouldn't he just be annoyed?).

_56\. Satisfaction_

His appetite improves once the magus is away from Sounis (that is to say, once he's successfully managed to kidnap an intelligent, respected wise man out of another king's citadel and oversee the destruction of an entire fleet with only one hand).

_57\. Desire_

"You stole something from me," he says, towering over her small shivering form (she's sprained her ankle in the fall, and his heart is still beating irregularly from terror, but he isn't about to let her get away with something this disastrous).

"I'm sorry," she mumbles (her face is pinched and white and for once, genuinely miserable). "I couldn't help myself."

And that's when he tells her he will let her keep his stolen heart, for all it's worth, if she'll only stop dancing on the roofs at wintertime (silly—idiotic—little—fool!) and then he picks her up and (in the name of sweet Irony) steals a kiss.

_58\. Hot_

"Where are you going?" she asks, shivering as the night blows in through the window and plays with the frills of her nightgown.

"Somewhere hotter," he replies coldly, and she knows by the glint in his eye that he's already burning with revenge and that his hook will soon be the end of a very troublesome Mede (if not a thousand).

_59\. Kiss_

Her smile is like the kiss of death, sucking the air from his very lungs, and it is all he can do to keep pleading for mercy.

_60\. Magnanimous_

"Costis," Attolis says offhandedly. "I'm the king. I drink from gold cups three times a day."

It isn't as though he can actually refuse, but it does annoy him a little that this Eddisian is saving him from being in debt for the rest of his life and he can't think of anything polite to say in reply. He finally mumbles something about his majesty being too magnanimous and is promptly laughed out of the room (see if he ever tries to be polite to an Eddisian again).

_61\. Painting_

"It doesn't look a thing like me," Eddis protests, flustered as she examines the portrait the magus has completed.

"It's how you look to me," Sophos replies, and gives her a melting smile.

_62\. Asleep_

He lifts his crossbow, crouching on the windowsill, until he has the sleeping woman in his sights. She is still and pale in the shadowy room, lit only by light from the near full moon at midnight coming in the south window. He smiles and clicks the bolt into place.

_63\. Awake_

It is only when the assassin feels the severe point of a hook tickling the tender place under his ear that he realizes his worries about the queen's guards were misplaced.

_64\. Shaky_

"Don't make any sudden moves," Attolis whispers to the assassin. "I tend to be shaky when nearby to nervous sorts. And it would be a pity if this neatly sharpened point began shaking so close to the skin of your throat."

_65\. One_

Sometimes she wishes she could give him one of hers.

_66\. Song_

The only time Ambiades and the thief have anything in common (muffled sounds of amusement, to be precise) is when the magus gives Sophos a lesson in song-writing.

_67\. Mercurial_

"I," said the smiling king with a snap of his fingers in a voice as quiet as the slipping of sand through her fingers onto pieces of roasted lamb, "could have you killed like  _that_."

_68\. Snake_

"There was a snake in your bed?" Attolia asks, eyes cold.

Her king shrugs. "It didn't bite me. The magus would say it was professional courtesy."

_69\. Dance_

Sometimes when they're dancing, the colors of the court on the edge of his vision blur into nothingness, and it's only her, spinning under the orange trees with the moonlight reflecting off her hair to pierce his heart like Cupid's arrows.

_70\. Hidden_

"However did you steal my heart, Eugenides?"

"With great difficulty, love. It was well hidden."

_71\. False_

"You lied to me." Sophos' voice breaks in the middle of his sentence. "I want to know why."

_72\. Poetry_

She moves like a poem—her skirts sweeping the floor with a careful rhythm, her sleeves making rhymes as they sway in the breeze. Her eyes speak similes and metaphors.

_73\. Petty_

"He's no king!" one of the queen's handmaidens giggles. "He puts up a fuss over which sash he wears and if his tunic isn't ironed properly."

But Phresine only smiles and shakes her head and wonders how the king discovered that pettiness was such a wonderful disguise.

_74\. Deliberate_

"I liked his mother's fibula pins better," Eugenides says to Hephestia. "The style of the earrings he chooses seems like a deliberate impudence."

_75\. Stain_

The dark red thumbprint on her cheek brings out the red in the jewels of her crown, and Costis thinks to himself that only the queen could make bloodstains seem beautiful.

_76\. True_

"You're lying to me!" Eddis hisses, glaring at him with the utmost venom she can muster.

"No," her cousin replies miserably. "For once in my life, everything I told you was the truth."

_77\. Invocation_

She always hears it in her dreams, and sometimes when she wakes up mumbling it, wholeheartedly, she sees the goddess standing over her, fixing her with an expression she so often feels on her own face, reminding her sternly, "Do not offend the gods."

_78\. Fantasy_

"Eugenides, this is not a fairy tale!" her words ring across the courtyard, and the Minister of War tries not to hear them. "Attolia is no doe-eyed princess. You will not find it to be a happy ending!"

A door slams and he hears his son's voice, shrill and furious and sounding just like his mother. "Then I will MAKE IT ONE!"

_79\. Despair_

"They're coming." His hook is buried in the bedpost and he rakes his hand through his hair with his hand. "They're coming to kill you, and me, and our child, and Costis, and there's nothing I can do to stop them."

_80\. Farcical_

It is only after Costis watches Sejanus prance around and offer the king the wrong twenty tunics that he realizes who is really the fool.

_81\. Taste_

"Why did you steal my new fibula pin?" he asks, holding her tightly by the wrist (but not too tightly—she feels as though she might break under his grasp).

"It was a gift from Ornon," she explains, and then grins. "He has horrible taste."

_82\. Dream_

After they received the letter of war from the confederation of Sounis, Eddis, and Attolia with the clear mark of a hook's point marring the king's seal, Nahuseresh begins to sleep a little less restfully than he used.

_83\. Brown_

"Supposing," says Gen, frowning down at the little pink face, "we forget to teach her something important. Like the color brown."

_84\. Picnic_

The children's laughter surrounds them like a cloud, and as he lays with his head in her lap and a peaceful smile on his face, she is quite certain that she would trade nothing— _nothing_ —for today.

_85\. History_

"I," Attolis drawls, "will be presented in the history books as a fool who thought his life was constantly being directed by the gods."

"What of me?" his wife asks, stifling a smile.

"Beautiful," comes the answer after a moment. "Powerful. Terrifying."

_86\. Distant_

He understands that she had a difficult childhood and ascendance to the throne, but whenever she starts talking about her father or her early days as queen, she gets a weary, distant sort of look in her eyes that makes him want to carve holes in the wall and throw inkpots out the window because he was dancing on rooftops and stealing earrings from his cousins while she was poisoning her first husband and giving away her soul one piece at a time.

_87\. Dead_

She releases the pent up agony and sorrow in great gulping sobs that are very uncharacteristic for her (but which would seem proper for most women to suffer on occasion) and ends up burying her face in his tunic. He puts an arm around her (the one without a hook) and murmurs a question.

"I thought you were dead." Her voice is breathless and horrified, as if all the forgotten fears and demons have returned in one fell second to haunt her mercilessly.

"So did the gods," Eugenides replies dryly, wiping away her beautiful tears, "but I told them I wasn't ready yet."

_88\. Doom_

He reclines against the window—watching the cloud of dust rising from the long parade of elephants and the smoke from burning villages as the two fuse together and twist over the sun to make everything gray—and wonders how long before the Mede army is at his gate.

_89\. Murderer_

"I once said I didn't like to kill," the king snarls, his eyes bright with emotion (Fury? Horror? Sorrow? Fear?). "And then you killed my queen."

_90\. Slice_

"Ah," the Thief hisses. His cousin straightens and says, "Gen? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he says, but the hand he proffers is dripping crimson even as he laughs derisively at himself. "I'm clumsy. That's all."

_91\. Laugh_

"Haha—haha! See, Costis, I laugh at your jokes. And you never return the favor."

"Maybe it is that his majesty's jokes are not very funny."

"…have I mentioned I can have you executed?"

"Ha. I take it back. His majesty can be funny on occasion."

_92\. Kind_

"Would you rather be beautiful or kind?" he asks her outright one day.

She doesn't even have to think before she answers him. "Kind."

Unexpectedly, he sighs and says glumly, "Me too."

_93\. Ivory_

She was never allowed to stand in direct sunlight, for fear the heat might mar her delicately colored skin. Thanks to her husband's dark skin, their children will never suffer the same fate (and whether this is good or bad, she cannot yet say for certain, though she has an inkling that she knows deep down inside).

_94\. Curses_

The howl fills the halls of the empty ruin that was once a castle, ripped from a raw throat like a string of endless, unspeakable curses spat at the gods, soaked with the blood of innocents and the knowledge that what you have become is no longer human.

_95\. Happy_

"I like this," Gen says, twirling a black curl around his fingers (it's been taunting him for the last five minutes, hanging just under her ear like that). "You and me. Together."

"And not fighting," Irene adds dryly, leaning against his shoulder with a half-sigh that nearly breaks his heart.

_96\. Tear_

He hooks his weapon-hand in the curtains and yanks backward with the strength of ten men, tearing gaping rents in the rich mulberry fabric. She has never seen him like this before.

"Where are they?" he asks, panting, eyes bright, clenching his trembling hand on the back of the chair, using the other to drill a hole the size of a hook's point in the wood to keep it from doing other damage. "Where are my children, Eddis?"

_97\. Blessing_

"Promise me you will protect him," says the old man, staring blankly at the babe lying on the altar of Eugenides. "Promise me you will keep him from harm."

"You know I cannot, my friend," replies the voice of a god, full of regret and pity. "But I will see that he gets his fair share of blessings."

_98\. Ghost_

Sometimes, after they give him lethium, his mother sits at the library window and talks to him and tells him not to be such a fool because since when does cutting off someone's hand mean there isn't room for love?

_99\. New_

"Isn't he perfect?" she whispers, unconsciously echoing verbatim the praise of every woman who lives to see her firstborn babe.

But Sophos cannot reply. He can only take the bleating bundle she holds out to him, eyes glowing to see his startled expression, and look down at his newborn son, hopelessly helpless and vulnerable and utterly dependent…on  _him_.

It is this moment at last in which Sophos is reborn—when suddenly he loses the last hints of "Zecush" in his gentle face and takes on fully the mantle of the Lion of Sounis.

_100\. Question_

"Eugenides?" she whispers, wrapping one hand around his fingers and the other around the baby's as they stand at the railing of the ship and look out over the plain that once was Attolia. "Is this the end?"

"End, love? There are good people in our country. The Medes can cause rebellion—can cause democracy to boot the monarchy once and for all—but they cannot destroy the good and right within our people. Attolia still has Costis. And Phresine. And Aris-whatever-his-name-is and Ion and Heiro. They will see all is made right."

The exiled queen feels tears pricking at her eyes, and suddenly feels very young and afraid and alone as she has never felt before. "They have a country. We've lost ours."

"Have we? We'll see it again one day. I'm sure of that," says her husband. "Meantime," he adds, withdrawing his hand from her grasp and wrapping it firmly about her shoulders, taking a pause long enough to plant a kiss right where her hair falls gently across her temple, "we have all the rest of the world."


End file.
